Development of an IoT and BIM-based automated alert system for thermal comfort monitoring in buildings

Abstract

A comfortable thermal indoor environment is crucial for occupants’ well-being and productivity. Building Management System (BMS) is usually used to monitor the thermal condition of buildings. One of BMS’s main challenges is in the data visualization stage, in which 2D vector graphics are used, which is not fully interactive and can only be manipulated by a trained operator. Building Information Modeling (BIM) has emerged as a useful tool in the construction industry, which can be applied in all stages of a project lifecycle. The use of BIM in facilities management is currently limited since BIM applications have primarily been implemented within the design and construction phases. The main objective of this study is to integrate a sensor-based alert system into BIM models for thermal comfort monitoring in buildings during the operational phase and visualize a building’s thermal condition virtually. In order to improve the performance of environmental monitoring management of buildings in smart cities, this research presents a newly developed integrated solution based on a BIM platform and Internet of Things (IoT). The designed prototype explores the integration of commercial BIM platforms with sensor data to create a self-updating BIM model to provide real-time thermal condition monitoring based on the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard within an office environment. The temperature and humidity values, measured by sensors, are sent to the MySQL database server. An integrated workflow was developed to compile, standardize, integrate, and visualize monitoring data in a BIM environment to facilitate interpretation, analysis, and monitoring data exchange. The developed system was able to detect the time and location of a case study office room experiencing the levels of thermal comfort/discomfort based on the targeted thresholds. In this case, thirteen levels of thermal discomfort cases, out of forty-nine data points during the test, were detected, and the developed system was also able to generate a trigger and transmit alarms to facility managers via their wireless devices in real-time. The results demonstrate that the proposed system is a visually effective monitoring system for environmental monitoring management. The fully automated developed system is expected to provide a robust and practical tool for reliable data collection, analysis, and visualization to facilitate intelligent monitoring of the thermal condition in buildings and help decision-makers make faster and better decisions, which may help in maintaining the level of occupants’ thermal comfort to a satisfactory level.